Daily Reflection (Easter Saturday)

Today’s video is a song: ‘The Stone’ by Sam Hargreaves. It captures beautifully the day of waiting – the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, recalling the Gospel account of Christ’s body, sealed in the tomb Matthew 27: 57-66.

Reverend Eryl Parry reflects, “this is a day for us to re-engage with the shock and disorientation of the disciples, stunned by the violence of Christ’s crucifixion, faced with the seeming finality of the sealed tomb.

Perhaps it is more natural for us to do that this year, as we stare suffering and death in the face. A day to acknowledge the searing pain of the world, and cry out to God for his mercy. As the number of deaths from the COVID-19 virus worldwide approaches 100,000 people, the fourth verse of Sam’s song calls us to ‘stand with the bereaved, stand with the broken, torn and bruised’.

In many ways, to have a Christian faith is to stand full square in the ‘in between-ness’ of Easter Saturday. Attending to the pain of this world, in the sure and certain hope of the next. Just as the psalmist below cries out for God’s mercy in lament, so he ends by trusting in him for the future. The final verse of today’s song looks to the ‘resurrection yet to dawn, a hope that holds us through the night’. Our prayer today must surely be for all those living through the darkness of suffering, and those working so hard to care for them, that they may too enjoy a brighter day.”

Psalm 13

Am faint mwy, Arglwydd?
Wyt ti’n mynd i’m diystyru i am byth?
Am faint mwy rwyt ti’n mynd i droi cefn arna i?
Am faint mwy mae’n rhaid i mi boeni f’enaid,
a dal i ddioddef fel yma bob dydd? 
Am faint mwy mae’r gelyn i gael y llaw uchaf?

Edrych arna i! 
Ateb fi, O Arglwydd, fy Nuw! 
Adfywia fi, rhag i mi suddo i gwsg marwolaeth;
rhag i’r gelyn ddweud, “Dw i wedi ennill!”
ac i’r rhai sy’n fy nghasáu ddathlu wrth i mi syrthio.

Ond na, dw i’n trystio dy fod ti’n ffyddlon! 
Bydda i’n gorfoleddu am dy fod wedi f’achub I. 
Bydda i’n canu mawl i ti, Arglwydd, 
am achub fy ngham.

Salm 13

Prayer
We will stand at the foot of the Cross on Calvary’s hill,

casting lots for his garments,

or comforting his mother;

we will see him breathe his last. 

We will carry him to the tomb,

and feel the weight of the stone that covers the entrance. 

We will mourn, in a deafening silence. 

And, in the twilight of Easter morning,

we will know the power of life

and the overwhelming hope that we have in Christ.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen.